Globally, women represent just over 40% of the agrifood workforce, with Canada’s own agricultural gender gap slowly shrinking. Some could argue the progress is not fast enough for an industry so reliant on women and girls for day-to-day functioning but maintains income and leadership discrepancies. These themes notoriously reveal themselves in gender discussions and, for 2026’s International Year of the Woman Farmer, these themes matter even more. Within this year’s conversations for Women’s Day, Advance: Women in Manufacturing hosted a discussion panel in connection with their annual awards ceremony, bringing together female business leaders in a retelling of personal career-shaping moments in a male-dominated industry.
One of the overarching themes of last week’s discussion was overcoming the idea that one person, especially if they are in a position of power, needs to do everything. Focusing early career development on understanding as much of the business or product creates a foundation of work-related respect and realistic growth potential; in the case for Kimberly Benedict (Inter Pipeline’s Heartland Polymers), these primary years allowed her to lean into her technical background as she learned the difference between leading a team and leading from within a team. Elissa Ross (academic turned CEO for technology startup, Metafold) claims such to be a common mindset shift in the movement from consultant (problem solver) to start up (solution creator).
Jillian Van Duinkerken (CEO of family-owned gluten-free baking mix company, Duinkerken Foods) warns that trying to be the answer-keeper for absolutely everything prevents the development of a system that can course-correct on its own. In her experience, her personal passion to grow her family legacy endorsed her team, who had could realise Duinkerken Foods’ potential beyond increasing sales, alone. Once you’ve realised the necessity of others with common goals, Sally Morse, co-founder of work glove manufacturing company, Spectra Supply, suggests that is one of the best ways to reaffirm communication credibility. Your success as a leader, however, is determined more by the health of the physical, managerial, and social work environment, as revealed by Erica Porter’s personal experience at Ardent Mills.
Who constitutes your team extends into your personal life. Traditional gender mechanisms are embedded into Canada’s agricultural industries, with approximately 61% and 62% of surveyed farm women citing pressures to maintain family-farm balances and domestic responsibilities, respectively, major challenges to farm participation. The severity of both on farm employment is impacted by surrounding supports, with Kimberly Benedict crediting her prior leaders for helping establish a work-home balance that worked best for her needs and Elissa Ross highlighting the importance that one’s life partner be an equal and supportive in instances when career needs to be prioritized. Similar statements can be made about male allies, who do not need to sacrifice their own careers in favour of women so long as their support extends into enhancing the visibility and resource accessibility of female-led projects.
Despite the overarching gender discrepancy, women are more likely to wait to fulfill all qualifications before applying for opportunities whereas men are more likely to learn on the job. This in and of itself has limited the visibility of women in manufacturing and male-dominated spaces, who perhaps feel like they don’t have the “right experience” to excel. Except female experiences are opportunities to expand the industry. Sally Morse’s firsthand inability to find properly-fitting personal protection equipment (PPE) lead Spectra Supply to develop a line of women’s work gloves and established the Alliance of Women’s Safety Apparel Manufacturers (AWSAM) to advocate for and provide awareness about proper PPE and available brands for manufacturers. There are internal opportunities for support, as well, like with Ardent Mills’ Women of Wheat (WOW) program, which empowers its company’s gender inclusivity by creating safe communication spaces and learning programs for female participation. In those programs, it is valuable to have ally participation for holistic company or industry progress.
There are numerous opportunities to uplift women in the agrifood space. So long as we are ensuring female voices are present and heard, meaningful improvements can be made to the gender gap. For women, we need to be comfortable embracing the uncomfortable; our opinions and expertise are required for societal progression, if we can overcome awkward in favour of curiosity (it’s easier said than done). Women and girls are vital to the health and productivity of global agrifood systems; the faster we recognize those contributions today, the more opportunities that can be provided in the future.
Interested in listening to the complete interview with Erica Porter, Advance: Women in Manufacturing‘s 2026 Plant Manager of the Year?
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